Culture Shock: A First Contact Mystery Thriller (The Gunn Files Book 1)

by M. G. Herron

  “A beacon, huh?”

  “Authorized and in orbit. Not on planet.”

  I grunted. I wanted to point out how fine a distinction that was—ethically—after the trouble we’d been through, but having a way to contact her reassured me. Ultimately, I decided to keep my peace. “How long would it take you to get back here, if you’re needed?”

  She gave me a wry smile. “Depends on my point of origin. We cannot enter the system in close proximity to a gravity well either, so we still have to account for travel time in-system.”

  That made my head spin. Taking a deep breath, I gazed beyond the shifting heat mirage hiding Dyna’s ship to a green-tinted sunset in the distance. “I guess that’s it then.”

  Dyna pulled something else out of her belt. This time, it was a glass hexagon about the size of a large coin, with what looked like a microchip encased in its center.

  “This is your payment,” she said. “Federation credits worth the equivalent of twenty thousand of your dollars.”

  I took the glass square with trembling hands, closed my fist around it, and shoved my fist in my pocket. My heart beat rapidly in my chest and my mouth went dry. “Thank you,” I managed to say.

  “The galaxy can be a terrifying place, Anderson Gunn. Most people would have turned and run from a Pharsei. You stood your ground. That kind of courage is hard to find—and worth rewarding.”

  Dyna cast her dark eyes down as she struggled with emotions she’d done well to conceal until now. When she looked up at me again, her expression was placid, smooth, held under a tight degree of control. “I must depart. Take care of yourself, Anderson Gunn.”

  The Lodian Peacekeeper once again used her abilities to float the Pharsei’s ship out of the bed of my truck. The air shimmered as the invisible vehicle followed Dyna, as if tethered on a leash.

  With a hiss of compressed air, a triangular door opened a breach in the shimmering cloak surrounding Dyna’s sleek starcraft. Elekatch’s little ship floated into the larger ship and set down in what appeared to be a storage area. Dyna walked through the triangular door, turned and waved, and then the door closed.

  Unseen engines roared to life, the ship rose with another blast of hot air, and the Peacekeepers departed from Earth.

  I waited another minute to be sure she was gone. Then I signaled and heard the distinctive growl of Alek’s Chevelle SS as it started up. The cranberry red hot rod rolled around the corner and glided up next to me.

  “Holy stinkin’ shit, Gunn,” Alek said as he exhaled a cloud of smoke through the window. His complexion was chalky, and it wasn’t a result of the cigar. “Now I see why you wanted me to wait around the corner.”

  “You wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told you.”

  “A truer thing has never been spoken. I’ve seen a lot of weird things in Austin, but this tops the cake, my friend. Is Anna going to be okay?”

  “I think so.” I glanced to the house and pursed my lips. “Whether she’ll recognize me tomorrow is another story. Did you bring it?”

  Alek grunted, grabbed the plastic handle from the floor on the passenger side of the car, and handed the cooler through the window to me.

  Ice shook inside as I took it into my hands. It was enough to fit a six-pack of beer inside, but that wasn’t this cooler’s destiny. I stepped into the bed of my truck, found the Pharsei’s tentacle in the lockbox where I’d stashed it, and put it on ice.

  Then I followed Alek to his office and told him why he wasn’t on the hook to pay me for this job.

  26

  The next morning, anxiety tied a knot in my chest as I hefted the cooler in one hand and began to make my way downtown. Without letting myself think too hard about what I was doing, I slipped into the alley and, by first setting the cooler on top of the wall, climbed over into the open courtyard behind the Museum of the Weird.

  The courtyard wasn’t very well secured, which was a good thing because until the cash was in my hands, there was no way I was going to waste money on a ticket to get inside.

  Now that I knew where to look, the secret entrance wasn’t difficult to find. It only took a few seconds of groping in the crack between two stones to find the release switch. I hauled the wooden door up and made my way down the steep stairwell, slouching into darkness beneath the many warning signs in languages both familiar and alien.

  It was cool at the bottom, yet sweat trickled down my spine and my t-shirt clung to my arms and neck. I took a deep breath and pounded with my fist on the metal door.

  Instantly, the sliding window snapped open. “Password?”

  “Hi.” My heart hammered in my chest and the cooler’s handle almost slipped through my fingers. I put on the bravest grin I could muster. “Remember me?”

  For a moment, I was worried I would have to go ask Vinny for the password. But then a heavy lock clicked, and the door swung aside.

  The three-headed hench-dog chuffed at me. “Boss is expecting you.”

  “Nice to see you, too, Porkchop.”

  Hench-dog glared, panting slightly. Three tongues whipped out to lick their respective noses, and a thick, furry sausage finger pointed toward the back of the club.

  The colorful illumination had been replaced by plain white lights. This early in the day, Harbor was almost empty except for a few spider-like offworlders polishing the floor, waxing on and off with cloths pinned beneath each of their six hairy feet. I gave them a wide berth as I made my way to the corner booth where Vinny and I had found the Gatekeeper the other night.

  The man I found seated there was dressed in a pinstripe zoot suit. His face beneath the broad brim of a fedora was gaunt and narrow, with high cheekbones and pronounced hollows in his cheeks. Despite the new body whose questionable style choices he now shared, a flash of blue fire in his eyes told me I was looking at the Gatekeeper. Who wore a zoot suit at the height of summer? This, more than anything, reminded me of Vinny’s insistence that the Gatekeeper wasn’t to be trusted.

  I wanted to get this over with. I set the cooler on the table. “Your souvenir.”

  With a pen he produced from his jacket, the Gatekeeper lifted the lid, glanced inside, and gave me a frown.

  “Where is the Pharsei’s head?”

  “You know I couldn’t have gotten his head even if I had wanted to. The Peacekeepers took the body with them. Which you knew they would.”

  His eyes flashed cerulean as the frown transformed into a smirk which wrinkled the gaunt man’s cheeks. “I wanted to see how far you were willing to go.”

  “I held up my end of the bargain.” I withdrew the hexagonal glass chip from my pocket and placed it on the table next to the cooler. “Time for you to make good on yours. Here are the Federation credits to convert. I’ll take cash.”

  His sly grin spread wider. “Don’t worry, bounty hunter. I am good for my word.”

  The Gatekeeper snapped his fingers and a scantily dressed woman came through a side door carrying a black duffel bag. As she approached, I saw that her knees were inverted, and she had big, multi-faceted eyes like an insect. Two mandibles clicked together as she set the bag down at my feet.

  Ignoring the insect lady and the way my skin crawled under the Gatekeeper’s watchful gaze, I unzipped the duffel. At the sight of the pile of cash inside, a dam in my chest burst open, flooding my body and soul with a rush of pure relief that washed away the anxiety I’d been holding inside.

  My mind jumped over the implications like sparks flinging themselves across the gap between two pieces of a severed power line. This money meant that I would no longer have to live under the stress of possible eviction. I could pay off my debt, repair my truck, or buy a new one. I would definitely be able to keep my office, and maybe even use the money to install some extra security, a project I’d been planning forever. After weeks—or was it months?—of feeling like gravity weighed heavier on me than on other people, a whole universe of possibility had opened up.

  Possibility, and freedom.

  �
�It’s all there,” the Gatekeeper said, mistaking my thorough inspection for suspicion rather than disbelief.

  The stacks of bills were all crisp twenties, wrapped into thousand-dollar stacks. Twenty-four of them, which meant the Gatekeeper had taken a thousand dollars for his conversion fee. Well, fair enough, and I wasn’t in the mood to haggle. I zipped the duffel and slung it across my shoulder diagonally.

  “Out of curiosity,” I said, “what are you going to do with that tentacle, anyway?”

  “Why, sell it, of course. Distilled Pharsei venom is a key ingredient in several powerful drugs popular among offworlders.”

  I grunted. So, the Gatekeeper would be making a profit off me after all. That seemed right. Even dangerous mob bosses had businesses to run. Things had come full circle.

  “Whatever,” I said, feigning a nonchalance I didn’t feel. Schooling my expression, I nodded at him once, turned, and began to walk out of the club.

  “Gunn,” the Gatekeeper called after me. If I shared any physiology with the hench-dog at the front door, my hackles would have shot up at the sound of my name.

  I turned slowly.

  “It is my fiduciary duty to inform you that the loan you had with the bank has been sold.”

  My mouth opened, and then closed. When I finally found words, I said, “How do you know about that?”

  “I have my sources. You were in default on your payments, and the bank was more than happy to get a bad loan off their hands. Especially once I gave them a little… encouragement.”

  I swallowed. “Are you saying you bribed them?”

  “I’m saying that I own your debt now.”

  What I heard was, I own you now.

  “Paperwork will be forwarded to you. See you soon, Mr. Gunn.”

  “Don’t count on it,” I snarled.

  Outside, I braced against the stone wall to catch my breath. The tightness in my chest had returned, and the duffel bag of cash at my side only did a marginal amount to mitigate it. I had to use Dyna’s breathing exercises to get myself under control.

  Once I had, I slowly came to the realization that I was still better off now than I’d been when I had first heard Cameron Kovak’s name. The amount of debt I was in hadn’t changed, only the name of the lender. Plus, I was twenty-four thousand dollars richer. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but now, at least, I had the opportunity to straighten things out. I was determined to make things right. If it took the rest of my life, I would buy back every penny of my freedom.

  I looked up and down the street. There was still so much work to be done. But first, I needed to clear my head.

  I found Alek’s car parked outside The Poached Pig. Inside, he was sitting at the bar alongside Detective Gonzalez and Vinny Moretti. They each had a pint glass in front of them and were laughing at some story that Alek was telling. Barry Morris, behind the bar, polished the mahogany countertop, then poured a fresh draft and set it down in front of the open seat to Vinny’s left.

  I took a deep breath and climbed up on the vinyl stool. A lot had changed in the past few days—I was glad to see that some things had stayed the same.

  Vinny nodded to me. Gonzalez smiled.

  I took a long drink of the cold Pilsner, downing half the glass in a single gulp.

  “Ah,” I sighed.

  “Amen to that,” Alek said, raising his glass. “How are you holding up?”

  After our conversation last night, he knew everything about the Peacekeepers and what I'd been through. They all did. Not sure Alek believed all of it, even after seeing Dyna's ship. But as usual, he was more concerned for my personal well-being. A true friend.

  Besides, intergalactic politics had a way of taking on a certain distance.

  I nudged the duffel bag with my foot. “Not out of the woods yet, but I think I’ll make it through. That reminds me, I forgot to say thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For sending Anna to help me with my finances. Now that I have a little money, I can start working her plan, so I can get out of this debt once and for all. I should have found someone like Anna years ago. She’s super smart.”

  Alek wiggled his eyebrows and pulled a fresh cigar out of his shirt pocket.

  “That’s not all she is, though, huh?” Vinny said.

  Gonzalez stopped mid-sip and snorted.

  I hid my face in my beer and fought down a blush as the four of them—Barry included—broke out into guffawing, knee-slapping laughter.

  When the laughter died down, we settled into a comfortable silence. Vinny pulled out his phone and started reading something. His jaw fell open and he looked up at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You’ll never believe this, Gunn.”

  “I feel like I’m more open-minded these days than I used to be.”

  He snorted. “This… well, see for yourself.”

  He handed me his phone. It was Marsha Marshall’s paranormal investigations blog. A new article, dated today, appeared at the top of the homepage. It started like this:

  “My name is Marsha Marshall, and I was abducted by aliens.”

  I stared at the screen, stunned into silence.

  There could only be one woman who was intelligent enough to put those pieces together—and whose memory of the past two days had been erased by a Peacekeeper.

  Annabelle Summers was Marsha Marshall.

  WHAT’S NEXT IN THE SERIES?

  You Just Read: CULTURE SHOCK

  Up Next: OVERDOSE

  Then: QUANTUM FLARE

  FROM THE PUBLISHER

  Thank you for reading Culture Shock, book one in The Gunn Files.

  We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. We just wanted to take a moment to encourage you to review the book on Amazon and Goodreads. Every review helps further the author’s reach and, ultimately, helps them continue writing fantastic books for us all to enjoy.

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  ABOUT M.G. HERRON

  M.G. HERRON is the author of the Translocator Trilogy and other imaginative stories of science fiction and fantasy.

  Born Matthew Gilbert Herron in 1988 in Limestone, Maine, he now lives in Austin, TX with his wife, Shelly, and their dog, Elsa.

  Books and reading have always been close to his heart. He love epic fantasies and fast-paced adventure novels. The dusty vanilla smell of old paperbacks is his happy place. He’s enamored of words that sing and turns of phrase that make your skin prickle.

  He also enjoys being in nature. His soul has a stubborn independent streak that makes climbing mountains one of the most exhilarating things he can think of. He’s guided rafts on the Yellowstone River and traveled across the world in search of adventures.

  His love of writing, particularly the art of writing fiction, grew more slowly. He wrote a couple stories when he was young, but didn’t take writing seriously for a long time. Early on, a lot more effort went into playing video games, learning to code, building websites, goofing off, and just generally trying to find himself.

  While he grew up in Delaware, he decided to try something new when it came time to pick a college. He crossed the border into Canada to attend McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario . At first, he chose to study Computer Science—given the websites he’d built and all the time he’d spent coding in high school, plus his general fascination with technology, it seemed a sensible choice. It only took a couple of miserable semesters before he realized his mistake and switched majors to English Literature.

  Sometime around then, the writing bug stirred up in him, and he began writing stories again.

 
After he graduated in 2009, he spent three years traveling Europe and Asia: Germany, mostly, but also Turkey, Scotland, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and India. He brushed up on his Spanish, and learned a little German. He waited tables for money, and became obsessed with rock climbing. He spent a lot of time finding sandstone towers in the Pfälzerwald (Palatinate Forest) in western Germany. During that time, he also did a few freelance writing projects—some PR stuff for a tours company, a few articles for English-language newspapers, that sort of thing.

  By 2012, he’d realized he was ready to get serious. He returned to the United States and moved to Austin, TX to become a full-time freelance writer. In a little detour, he became a project manager at a web design agency, where he managed over $1 million in digital projects and spoke at the SXSW Interactive conference.

  Most days, he spends his mornings writing novels, and in the afternoon consult with tech startups and small businesses on copywriting and marketing strategy.

  In the fall of 2015, M.G. Herron was born. He published his first novel, The Auriga Project, a sci-fi thriller about a freak teleportation accident and a lost Mayan tribe. Now he have half a dozen books and even more short stories.

  In Austin, he occasionally puts together events for writers through the local Indie Author Society, an organization for indie authors he started on Meetup.com.